too intelligent to actually be intelligent?

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I measure the "intelligence' of a design by how complicated it
was to achieve the goal. When a feature of the body has to have many
functions working together to achieve the feature- and each functions
design is complex in and of itself- and everything has to have an exact order or it won't work at all, I call that intelligent design.

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So, was this intelligently designed?: It meets all of your criteria.

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I agree with you in that I think that by far the most logical conclusion to come to about our existence is that we are the result of an intelligent design that requires an external designer.

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Why would an "intelligent" designer put a sharp ridge of bone on the inside of our skulls so that it rips into the brain easily?Why would an intelligent designer give us crossover air and food pipes which makes us so prone to choking and aspirating food and water into our lungs?Why would an "intelligent" designer make giving birth so difficult and dangerous?

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Why does a non-directed evolution that is based on survival of the fittest produce any of those things you mentioned.

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Becasue they are "good enough" designs, with lots of compromise and tradeoffs.Certainly sub-optimal, to say the least, though.

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The answer to either of our questions is that there is no answer. We don't know.

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Sure we do. Evolution produces "good enough" design with lots of trade-offs and compromise.We have crossover air and food pipes because that construction allows for complex speech while also making us vulnerable to choking and aspirating food and liquid into our lungs.Complex speech was a huge benefit to humans' survival, even if we lost individuals to choking. Remember, most individuals don't choke, and most of those that do, don't die. however, we are far more prone to choking than the majority of other mammals.Human birth is so difficult and dangerous in large part because we developed such incredibly large brains that made it difficult to push babies' heads out of the cervix. Large brains, however, are a very important survival benefit to the species.Lastly, the reason that we have sharp bone ridges on the inside of our skulls is simply because the shape of the skull matches the shape of the brain. There is no tradeoff here. It's just that the everyday life of your average savanna-dwelling homo Sapien didn't involve travelling in vehicles that go 50 mph and bounce our brains around our skulls when they stop suddenly.Your answer "we don't know", is merely a copout on your part.I guess we can conclude that your "intelligent" designer isn't a very good designer, and in the case of the skull ridges, he's pretty much an asshole.

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I would however point out that in spite of those things life flourishes on this planet.

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Right.In spite of.In spite of a lot of barely good enough design, rife with compromise and trade-offs, life flourishes.Of course, life also goes extinct at a very rapid rate on this planet and always has.If the designer is so great, why do extinctions happen at all?

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So, as much as you like to find perceived flaws in the design it would appear to me that the overall result is more than just a little impressive.

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The point is, you have not shown that "intelligence" is responsible for the design of anything in the natural world.

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There is no point getting into a debate about anatomy with you as I am singularly unqualified to do so. Call it a cop-out if you want but it ain't my field.

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But you are the one who said, in response to my list of suboptimal design in humans:

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Why does a non-directed evolution that is based on survival of the fittest produce any of those things you mentioned.

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The answer to either of our questions is that there is no answer. We don't know.

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You were obviously unaware of the evolutionary explanations for the suboptimal design features I listed.If you don't want to get into a debate about the specifics of the design of human anatomy, then I suggest making fewer claims about what answers Evolutionary Biology is or isn't able to provide.

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I have never claimed that I have shown that "intelligence" is responsible for anything.

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You wrote, just a few posts ago in message #41:

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I agree with you in that I think that by far the most logical conclusion to come to about our existence is that we are the result of an intelligent design that requires an external designer.

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I agree that you haven't shown that an IDer is responsible for anything.So, given that there is no evidence whasoever for an IDer, and plenty of evidence showing that evolutionary forces can and do design life, upon what basis do you claim that "logic" has anything to do with your conclusion?

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You haven't shown that it isn't.

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So what?I don't have to.You are the one making the positive claim that logic points to an IDer, so you are the one that needs to support the claim.

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You've expressed an opinion just as I have. All we can do is come to our own conclusions, based on our knowledge and perceptions, about why we or anything exists. It isn't science. It is philosophy and theology.

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You claimed it was "logical" to come to the conclusion that "we are the result of an intelligent design that requires an external designer".When presented with examples of rather "unintelligent" design features, you say that neither ID proponents nor science knows how these features could have arisen. Additionally, you claim that the mere fact that there is a lot of life around should point to a IDer.When shown that science actually does have explanations, you pretty much refuse to discuss the subject any longer, and you completely ignore the subject of why your IDer would design so much life to become extict.Lastly, you retreat from supporting your claims by saying that we have only been discussing "opinions" and that science has nothing to do with anything.So maybe you could explain upon what evidence you base your "logical" opinion that "we are the result of an intelligent design that requires an external designer?"From where I'm standing, your opinion isn't based upon anything logical at all.

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First one; although the human body is 'sub-optimal' it is not necessarily true that we could ourselves conceive of a better 'design'.

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Look, let's all be honest here.If there exists a super-powerful, life-creating entity that designed humans, we are talking about God (or near enough compared to humans).Given this, it doesn't matter what humans could or couldn't think up to improve the design of our bodies.God should be able to make it better because it's God.

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Only considering birth and brain size, what sort of improvements could you or anyone foresee in nature that would solve all problems, with no trade-offs?

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If it's God doing the designing, God could just make it better without any trade-offs.

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I know that is not a fair question, but we are coming from a position in many cases where IDists see the body as finished, and if it is not, there can be a continued advance in 'design' in ways that we intelligent beings can't even predict.

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Exactly.We continue to evolve.

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So are we looking at 'best'? And if not, I will defend GDR a little, since he may not have been saying that he doesn't know what the anatomical functions of those particular flaws are, but he has not even realized he is asking why natural selection would have 'ended' there.

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I don't know if GDR was asking this or not.

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In other words there may be an assumption that we are already viewing the best result of natural selection possible, rather than, to date. Hence the question 'why' did so many flaws get through?

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They are tradeoffs based upon existing design or based upon factors that were relevant during most of our evolution but not in modern times.This makes perfect sense from an evolutionary standpoint.As far as I can tell, an "intelligent" designer is not a very good one, and in some cases is pretty much an asshole.

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Nator's point is that there are flaws in the design, hence no intelligent designer.

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No.There could be an Intelligent Designer.If there is, though, He pretty much sucks.

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I merely pointed out that it seems to me that if we have non-directed evolution occurring that is largely based on "survival of the fittest" then the flaws should have been bred out of us by now.

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So, what you seem to be saying is:"If a design is perfect, that is evidence for an Intelligent Designer."and"If a design is flawed, that is evidence against Evolution."Well, that's a pretty much iron-clad, unfalsifiable hypothesis, GDR!I strongly, strongly, STRONGLY suggest you read Gould's The Panda's Peculiar Thumb here.It is easily the most famous Evolutionary Biology essay and is all about how "flaws" and "imperfections" are signs of evolution.It will help you clear up your drastic misunderstanding of how evolution works that you have just demonstrated in the statement above.

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I see evolutionary forces as part of the design but I don't see them creating the first cell,

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Why couldn't they have?Be specific.(I do hope your background in Cellular Biology is more extensive than your background in Anatomy and Physiology)

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and although you may come up with a theory of how the first cell was formed I would suggest that there is no empirical method of proving it

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Unless you can provide compelling, evidence-based reasoning for why cells couldn't have evolved, there is no reason at all to logically conclude that evolutionary forces could not have created cells.That's because there is empirical evidence for evolution, and there's no reason to suggest that the formation of cells didn't happen through evolution. There is ongoing research into cell evolution, and progress is being made, even though it is a difficult field.At any rate, you have moved the goalposts in the debate.Why have we moved from your claims about the intelligend design of the human body to the evolution if the very first cell?A cynical person might conclude that you are retreating to a place where the science isn't quite so strong.And I would actually like to return to extinction and ID.If an IDer exists, why has extinction been the most common fate of, literally, 99% of all life that has ever existed on the planet? Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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You read this statement as see random chance producing the design that Gould speaks of whereas I continue to maintain that an Intelligent Designer is the more logical conclusion.

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How about this, GDR.Why don't you give me a summary of what Gould was saying in the essay instead of cherry picking quotes out of context.

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You clamed because of flaws that you perceive in the design that any designer is not very intelligent.

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Or an asshole.

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I just make the point that these same perceived flaws can't be used to make a case for either.

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No.They CAN be used to make a case for evolution, and The Panda's Peculiar Thumb very effectively illustrates this.The entire thrust of that essay is to show that flaws indicate evolution.Perhaps you need to read it again without your Creoblinders on.

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The theory of evolution, (which of course is still evolving ), appears to have a solid scientific basis. If there are flaws in the design at our current point in the evolutionary process they could just as easily happened whether the process was set in place by an Intelligent Designer or if it just happened by random chance.

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There is no practical scientific difference between:"Evolution is God's (or the IDer's) method of designing life"and"Evolution is a wholly naturalistic process."If it makes you feel good to think that an IDer directs evolution, then that's cool, but there's nothing logical, nor evidence based, about it.It's just your religious belief.

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I just think the evolutionary
theory in general is made up of the things I mentioned
and the people that study it have been brainwashed.

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Science doesn't work that way.Science is very, very competative and contentious. The most famous and respected scientists rock the boat and topple old theories and ideas.Revolutionaries get the Nobel Prize, not brainwashed people repeating unquestioned doctrine.Conducting science is completely anathema to brainwashing, since critical thinking and analysis and the constant challenge of and from one's peers prevents it completely.

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Why, for instance, did our eyes come
out perfectly positioned above our perfectly positioned nose
above our perfectly positioned mouth etc.?

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What brings you to the conclusion that their positions are "perfect"?There are other animals that have other arrangements, so obviously there is room for successful variation. In other words, the arrangement that you think is "perfect" didn't have to be that way at all.

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How could all the functions of the ears come out perfectly
with such complex components causing proper hearing to happen
without intelligence being involved. ITS IMPOSSIBLE!!!

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You are completely ignorant of human ear evolution, aren't you?If you don't know anything about it, how can you say it is impossible?Just because you, personally, can't see how it could have evolved, on account of younot knowing diddly squat about evolution, doesn't mean it didn't.Are you saying that you, in your nearly complete ignorance, somehow know better than the hundreds of thousands of professional Biologists who have been devoting their lives to the subject over the last 200 years or so?

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'Explanations like "God won't be tested by scientific studies" but local yokels can figure it out just by staying aware of what's going on have no rational basis whatsoever.' -Percy"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."- Richard Feynman"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"
- Ned Flanders"I haven't studied the theory of evolution much because I disagree 100%
with its claims."--ICDESIGN

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You can't possibly imagine how a perfect God would make a flawed creature, so therefore one didn't? Still not logical because all gods need not be perfect or create perfectly.

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The moment that an ID supporter points to a poor design feature as proof that we were intelligently designed, I'll eat my hat.The point is, I'm not saying that life [b]can't[/i] be intelligently designed.All I am saying is that there is currently no evidence to support the claims that life [b]was[/i] intelligently designed.

OK, I'll state this another way.Why don't you see evolutionary forces creating the first cell?What specific justification do you have for this position?

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I don't get into discussions about science except to ask questions.

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What I actually see is you making rather bold claims about what science understands and what science is capable of, and then quickly backing down and retreating to "it's all just opinion" when you are asked to support those bold claims.What you don't seem to do, however, is learn a whole lot about evolutionary theory. Sorry, that's how I see it.

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Even if science can explain how the first cell was formed it still couldn’t explain why it was formed.

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You also can't use a screwdriver to provide you with legal advice.Funny how you can't use a tool designed for one purpose and use it for a completely unrelated purpose, huh?The point, though, is that there is no reason other than your wish to hold a religious belief in God, to conclude that life, the Universe, or anything was or is intelligently designed.Human evolution certainly doesn't require it in the least.

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We all come to these things with are own blinkers on.

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Bullshit. Don't try to equate the scientific, critical approach to claims and data with the the religious, cherry-picking approach that you use.

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I maintain that the incredible complexity of the design, with or without flaws, indicate ID.

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There is no evidence-based, rational reason to maintain this.It is a faith-based position.

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Neither of us can prove ourselves right. We have just come to different conclusions.

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My position is that there is no rational basis to conclude ID.Occam's Razor is violated when an IDer is invoked.However, if you want to hold a religious view that an IDer exists, then that's fine.But it isn't rational.

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Incidentally it seems to me that if we had evolved totally naturalistically that it would be unlikely that we would be having this discussion as I would think that it would be unlikely that we would evolve in such a way that we would have such widely differing opinions on something as basic as why we exist.

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That is a classic example of a fallacy called the Argument from Incredulity.Just because you believe or disbelieve something doesn't make it true or false.

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I must be missing something here, but this is exactly the point I have been trying to make all along only to have you come back and try to make the latter scientific. I agree with this quote completely.

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Both of the options explain the same thing. The first just invokes God for no impirical reason.The second statement IS scientific. The first violates Occam's Razor.

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I believe that a designer makes more sense than completely naturalistic happenings. I completely agree though that there is no scientific evidence to support my position, but there is no scientific evidence that support the naturalistic position either.

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Uh, the "naturalistic position" is solely and completely derived from the scientific evidence, GDR.Going beyond the science and invoking a designer is not rational and violates Occam's Razor.

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You are suggesting that by saying that evolution theory is a directed process I am making evolution less simple than if it is non-directed. I don't agree. Evolutionary theory exists in exactly the same manner whether it is directed or not. Occam's Razor has nothing to do with it.

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Which is simpler:Evolutionary theory, as observed, operates through purely naturalistic mechnanisms.orEvolution, as observed, operates through purely naturalistic mechanisms, but there is in addition an undetectable, invisible God-like intelligence that is so powerful that it can design life and even create it out of nothing at all.Evolution is explained in either case, but adding the IDer is unecessary and doesn't add anything to our understanding of nature.In fact, it only raises many more questions, such as:What is the nature of the IDer?What are the specific mechanisms by which the IDer affects the world?If an IDer exists, what predictions can be made to verify it's effects on the world?What designed the IDer?What designed the designer of the IDer?and so on.Occams razor is violated when you tack an IDer on to evolutionary theory, because evolutionary theory doesn't require an IDer.I'm sorry you don't agree, but you are, indeed, violating Occam's Razor.Which is fine, for a personal religious belief.But it isn't rational.

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But you can't just pull this out in isolation. It is the whole package.

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Of course I can pull this out in isolation, because you made the claim that way.You accept that purely naturalistic evolutionary forces work on nature at least part of the time, but when it comes to the creation of the first cell, you say that they couldn't have been responsible.I'd like to know your justification for this position.

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Because there is something rather than nothing.

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Philosophical question, not a scientific one.Of course, an IDer is "something", so you can't explain the "existence of something" by postulating the "existence of something".That explains nothing.

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Because of the complexity of all life.
Because of the complexity of our world and the universe.

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"Complex" relative to what other life and what other world and Universe?The adjective "complex" only makes sense as a comparison.What other Universe, world, and life have you compared ours to?

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Because I have consciousness.
Because I have self awareness.
Because we have a moral code.
Because love exists.
Etc.

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All of these congnitive features are known to have natural, biological origins. Read some Cognitive and or Social Psychology sometime if you are interested in learning about current research.Dolphins, Elephants and Bonobo Chimps, for example, also have self-awareness. Capuchin monkeys have something close to self awareness but their's seems to be intermediate betwwen true and nonexistent self-awareness. Since those species are known to have very high intelligence and complex social structures, just like humans do, it is reasonable to conclude that self-awareness is an emergent property of the brain.Other animals, like Bonobo's and other social monkeys, also have moral codes. They recognize fairness and reciprocity, for example.Love is easily understood from a social psychology and biochemical standpoint without any supernatural source needed.What does this mean to your claim of an IDer?It certainly appears as though it's nothing more than a big brain that is the source of those specific attributes you listed, considering that several non-human species, which also have big brains, have them.

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It is all things combined that in my view leads me to the view that an IDer exists. Once I come to this conclusion then it seems likely that the IDer had something to do with the first cell.

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That is utterly illogical and isn't based upon evidence at all.It's just something that you like to think is true.You admittedly don't know anything about Cellular Evolution, yet you are confident that evolution couldn't have been responsible for creating the first cell? Further, you conclude within your ignorance that an IDer just "had" to be involved.Again, more fallacious Argument from Incredulity.Please remember, that even if we never understand how the first cell came about, that does not constitute positive evidence for an IDer.